Studies in the Novel CFP: Special Issue on the Graphic Novel
To whom it may concern,
I write to you to express interest in submitting my article, “The Aesthetics of the Infected: Post-Frankenstein ‘hideous progeny’,” to Studies in the Novel for the special issue on the graphic novel. In it, I dialogically read the newest installment of the 28 Days Later franchise (The 28 Days Later Omnibus [2014]) with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818). Specifically, I locate the source of the franchise’s dystopian cartography within Victor Frankenstein’s apocalyptic vision should he make a female companion for the Creation, and I utilize aesthetic theory to discuss both the Infected and the Creation in terms of the noxious presence of the “ugly,” horrifying non-human that threatens to destabilize romantic ideals of humane quotidian domesticity. As the graphic novel positions Selena going back into Infected territory with a group of American journalists who become the arbiters of the “truth” about Infection, it is revealed to be the archetypal homo faber narrative of Creator and Creation; the British Government desired to create super soldiers incapable of compassion, pity, and empathy. Selena’s trials are a radical revision of female agency and empowerment within the Gothic tradition, evidencing a political and ethical methodology of artists to take up and synchronously refine narratives with feminist theoretical developments and criticism of the carceral spaces/places Gothic heroines traditionally inhabit. In voluntarily immersing herself in Infected territory as a guide for arbiters of the “truth” of Infection, Selena reclaims the domestic space/place and apotheosizes to the status of the sublime—something the non-human should fear. In other words, she "goes bump in the night."
Thank you very much for the opportunity to submit an abstract, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Studies in the Novel CFP: Special Issue on the Graphic Novel
To whom it may concern,
I write to you to express interest in submitting my article, “The Aesthetics of the Infected: Post-Frankenstein ‘hideous progeny’,” to Studies in the Novel for the special issue on the graphic novel. In it, I dialogically read the newest installment of the 28 Days Later franchise (The 28 Days Later Omnibus [2014]) with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818). Specifically, I locate the source of the franchise’s dystopian cartography within Victor Frankenstein’s apocalyptic vision should he make a female companion for the Creation, and I utilize aesthetic theory to discuss both the Infected and the Creation in terms of the noxious presence of the “ugly,” horrifying non-human that threatens to destabilize romantic ideals of humane quotidian domesticity. As the graphic novel positions Selena going back into Infected territory with a group of American journalists who become the arbiters of the “truth” about Infection, it is revealed to be the archetypal homo faber narrative of Creator and Creation; the British Government desired to create super soldiers incapable of compassion, pity, and empathy. Selena’s trials are a radical revision of female agency and empowerment within the Gothic tradition, evidencing a political and ethical methodology of artists to take up and synchronously refine narratives with feminist theoretical developments and criticism of the carceral spaces/places Gothic heroines traditionally inhabit. In voluntarily immersing herself in Infected territory as a guide for arbiters of the “truth” of Infection, Selena reclaims the domestic space/place and apotheosizes to the status of the sublime—something the non-human should fear. In other words, she "goes bump in the night."
Thank you very much for the opportunity to submit an abstract, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.